Beijing urged to turn up heat on N. Korea

Cheney suggests time running out

April 15, 2004|By Michael A. Lev, Tribune foreign correspondent.

BEIJING — Vice President Dick Cheney told Chinese leaders Wednesday that it was important to continue pushing North Korea to negotiate an end to its covert nuclear program because "time is not necessarily on our side," a senior administration official said.

Cheney, visiting China as part of a weeklong sweep through Asia, did not appear to advocate any change in tactics from disarming North Korea through a diplomatic settlement. But the vice president told the Chinese that negotiations should not be allowed to drag on indefinitely.

The United States, along with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, has failed in two sets of talks with North Korea to persuade the regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The five countries are seeking a settlement in which the North disarms in exchange for economic aid and diplomatic recognition.

The diplomacy continues, but a senior Bush administration official who spoke with American reporters here Wednesday said there is concern that North Korea could be using the lengthy time between six-party meetings to continue developing nuclear weapons.

"There are developments under way in North Korea even as we deliberate," the official said, adding that it was crucial to "move forward aggressively to get this resolved as quickly as possible."

While the Bush administration has said it has no intention of attacking North Korea, it has suggested that the Pyongyang regime's continued recalcitrance could require working through the United Nations to impose sanctions, a threat that the North has said it would view as an act of war.

China, one of North Korea's few friends, has organized the six-way talks. While Beijing insists that it does not want the North to possess nuclear weapons, it clearly has tried to prevent a diplomatic showdown with the North.

In making his point to continue pushing North Korea, Cheney relayed to the Chinese new evidence from Pakistan that its top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold uranium-enrichment technology to the North, as well as to Libya and Iran. To the U.S., that represented additional confirmation of its claim that North Korea is pursuing two separate covert nuclear programs, one based on uranium as well as one--acknowledged by the North--based on plutonium.

The vice president ended his China stay Thursday at Fudan University in Shanghai, where he urged China to do more to lower trade barriers, protect copyrights and other intellectual-property rights, and allow its currency to rise or fall with market forces.

Taiwan, Hong Kong linked

In every meeting the Chinese raised the issue of Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. China objects to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, but Cheney told the Chinese that the sales--made under the Taiwan Relations Act--are in reaction to the perceived military threat to the island posed by China and its missiles. The U.S. is required by the law to defend the island against attack from the mainland.

In his talks, Cheney also linked Taiwan and Hong Kong, where a democracy movement has been frustrated by Beijing's authority. China wants Taiwan to return to mainland control under the same "one country, two systems" principle that governs Hong Kong. But if Taiwan sees that Hong Kong's residents feel their autonomy has been stifled, it would only encourage Taiwan to move further away from China.

Cheney made that point to the Chinese, telling them that "one might speculate that the people on Taiwan might view what happens in Hong Kong as a sort of a bellwether," the senior administration official said.

Cheney reports success

Cheney told reporters that he considered his visit to China to be a success because it represented the chance to exchange views. "I didn't come expecting to alter Chinese policy," he said.

More broadly, the vice president offered a perspective on the complex scope of relations with China, whose authoritarian regime at times appears to be adversarial and a potential military rival, even as the country becomes an integral economic and trade partner with the U.S.

Republicans once viewed China as a specific "strategic competitor," but Cheney avoided any broad characterization.

"I think it is a mistake for us as Americans to underestimate the extent to which there are differences in terms of our approach, our political system, in terms of our culture and history," said Cheney, who first visited China in 1975.

"By the same token," he said, "I think it's clear that there are broad areas where we share common strategic interests and that with careful, thoughtful work on both sides, going forward there is no reason why we can't achieve a high degree of cooperation and avoid the kind of conflict and confrontation that would be a tragedy for everybody."